MAD MAX: FURY ROAD – An Unexpected Masterpiece of Adrenaline

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD is metal as fuck. It’s the purest and one of the best straight action films I’ve seen.

While the film rarely takes a breath during its two hour runtime, the little snippets of characterization provide compelling reasons to root for the heroes, and even sympathize with its villains. Also, while I don’t know if you could call it a “feminist piece”, it handles a surprising wealth of female characters with incredible grace, never falling prey to the genre’s most common failings of damseling its women or having them overcompensate with fierce masculinity. In fact, all the colorful characters in the film simply… are. They feel like effortless extensions of the mad world they inhabit. Even the antagonist’s crazed henchmen are given proper motivations for their behavior.

Like any action movie worth a damn, the stakes feel real, the danger feels tangible. The fact that so little of the INSANE action was computer generated helps tremendously. Oh… and the blood pumping soundtrack by Junkie XL is played by a dude chained to a monster truck with a flame-throwing electric guitar. You may not have known you needed that in your life, but you do. So yeah… go see MAD MAX: FURY ROAD.

3D Recommendation – Despite the quick cuts and near constant mayhem, the 3D was effective and clean, and the movie has some great moments for the medium. If you can handle Max, you can probably handle him in 3D.